Beat the Streak Picks

For the past two years Baseball Musings tried to help with playing Beat the Streak. The Day by Day Database keeps track of hit streak of at least five games. In addition, two programs produce top ten lists of players with a high probability of a hit. If you find this useful, please support Baseball Musings with a donation.

Here are the top picks my programs produced for use in Beat the Streak. This post mostly explains the ideas behind the calculations. In addition, this post shows tests on the Neural Network (NN). This post discusses an NN that includes the ballpark. I updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.

For 2019, I am just going to publish the Log5 hit averages and the NN probabilities with parks factored in. I am keeping track of the results here. I added a graph that gives a visual representation of the probability and success each day.

First, the Log5 Method picks:

• 0.294 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Homer Bailey.
• 0.292 — Anthony Rendon batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.290 — Howie Kendrick batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.284 — Cody Bellinger batting against Zach Davies.
• 0.283 — Nolan Arenado batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.279 — Domingo Santana batting against Chris Stratton.
• 0.278 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.277 — David Peralta batting against Michael Soroka.
• 0.277 — Adam C Eaton batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.276 — David Dahl batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.276 — Nick Castellanos batting against Ivan Nova.
• 0.276 — Freddie Freeman batting against Luke Weaver.

LeMahieu turned out to be a great pickup for the Yankees. With all the injuries, he slid into the lead-off slot and is getting on base at a .406 clip, mostly through hits. Someone who bats at the top of the order is good to pick in Beat the Streak, since they are more likely to get an extra turn at the plate.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.290, 0.717 — Howie Kendrick batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.292, 0.711 — Anthony Rendon batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.294, 0.710 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Homer Bailey.
• 0.271, 0.706 — Jean Segura batting against Kyle Freeland.
• 0.277, 0.703 — David Peralta batting against Michael Soroka.
• 0.283, 0.694 — Nolan Arenado batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.276, 0.694 — Freddie Freeman batting against Luke Weaver.
• 0.278, 0.692 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.272, 0.691 — Jorge Polanco batting against Clay Buchholz.
• 0.284, 0.690 — Cody Bellinger batting against Zach Davies.
• 0.263, 0.690 — Christian Yelich batting against Julio Urias.

Kendrick, Rendon, and LeMahieu all tie for the consensus first choice.

I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!

from baseballmusings.com http://bit.ly/2IF5JcA